In this article, I will speak about the science of the mind…
One must deliver himself with the help of his mind, and not degrade himself. The mind is the friend of the conditioned soul, and his enemy as well.” (Bg 6.5)
Many people practice yoga in the Western world, in order to improve their health or to achieve peace of mind. My spiritual teacher Srila Prabhupada wrote that the purpose of the yoga system is to control the mind and to draw it away from attachment to sense objects. Modern yoga societies and clubs don’t teach that the purpose of the yoga system is to control the mind.
There are five sense objects: rupa (form), sparsa (touch), sabda (sound), gandha (smell), and rasa (taste). Our sense of smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch, are all attracted to those sense objects. The phenomena that happens between the senses and the sense objects is like a chemical reaction. It’s happening automatically and we are mainly unconscious of it. Bhagavad-gita helps us to understand that how this is taking place, how the senses are attracted to the sense objects automatically, spontaneously. This awareness about what’s happening helps us control our senses if we want to practice real yoga successfully. According to Vedic literature, there is no success in life without controlled senses. It is necessary to achieve the level of self-control.
If someone has a peaceful mind, he can control his senses. Control of the senses helps to control the mind, control of the mind helps sense control. Therefore, it’s good to practice both. A controlled mind is a friend. Uncontrolled mind is an enemy. An uncontrolled mind can go so far that it will tell you that the best thing at a certain moment is to commit suicide. That’s an extreme situation where the mind is completely crazy. Therefore a person who wants self-realization, wants to advance in spiritual life, wants peace and happiness, will make an effort to control his mind and to make it a friend.
Are you aware of the internal dialogue that goes on in the mind all the time? What is it that the mind tells us? Is it something encouraging, something that helps us, or is it something that doesn’t help us, that degrades us, that is discouraging? If we practice, if we work with the mind, which is like an instrument, we can elevate our life to a higher level and be happy even in this life. It is said that the mind of a self-controlled person is like an ocean. Many rivers flow into the ocean. They might be turbulent and fast, but because the ocean is very calm, they also become calm within that ocean. They become the water of the ocean.
Similarly, many desires may appear in our mind, but if one is self-controlled, those desires will not agitate him. He will be able to see those desires, acknowledge their presence, but not be disturbed and overwhelmed. Above all, he will not be induced to do something about fulfilling those desires. When you see a spiritually advanced person, it’s not that he doesn’t experience desires. They also encounter tests. The difference between them and us is that they pass those tests and don’t come under the influence of those desires.
How it is possible that one controls the mind? It is possible if one absorbs his mind with something better, like a child who plays with toys. If you take away all the toys, he will become distressed and disturbed, perhaps create even more problems. But if you give him a better toy, he will be satisfied. For instance, if he plays with a knife, it’s dangerous. If you take away the knife, he might cry. If you give him something else, he will be absorbed and peaceful. At least it’s likely to happen. Similarly, the mind must be engaged in something. To engage the mind positively and spiritually, we chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, a spiritual sound vibration, the names of God, and it helps us calm the mind, and to absorb it in that spiritual vibration.
A quality of questions we ask ourselves determines a quality of our thinking, what goes on in the mind and that determines the quality of the results.
There are six enemies of the mind. If we become aware of them, it will be easier to defend from them. They are lust, anger, greed, envy, illusion, and madness. All these agitate our mind. They are also called the “six highway robbers”. When they are present, the mind is agitated, when they are not present, the mind is peaceful. One who is interested in self-realization, who wants peace of mind, will never trust his mind. He will never think “I am now sufficiently self-controlled, I have now rejected all sinful activities, I am now an advanced devotee and there is no problem. I can control myself and I don’t have to be cautious.” The mind is like a tamed animal. Sometimes they tame lions. Even when they are tamed, we still have to be cautious, because at any moment they can harm us. Therefore, a self-realized person always carefully deals with his mind and controls it.
It’s favorable to be aware what we think. We have that ability while the animals don’t. They live and think “Where’s food?” etc, but we can observe what we think. Three functions of the mind are thinking, feeling, and willing, and they can be observed. We can become more aware of them. Those who practice spiritual life and make a conscious effort to think certain things, to focus on certain things, are sometimes surprised when all of a sudden something unwanted or strange appears in the mind. Plop! Thus sometimes monks become bewildered, “What is this? Is this a sign that I am not a monk, that I am not a devotee? Maybe this is a sign that I have to go back to my old habits. Maybe this is a sign that I need to get married. Maybe this is a sign that I should give in to my senses and the mind. Maybe this is a sign that I have gone crazy. Maybe this is a sign that I should kill myself.” One who is self-realized knows what is this “Plop!” That is simply something quite usual, the test of the illusory energy. She is checking whether we are still serious about spiritual life.
Why monks fall down? There are many reasons. It may be because they don’t pass the test, they don’t have a sufficiently higher taste, they don’t have enough faith, they are not firmly established in the spiritual knowledge. We have to build a strong foundation for our spiritual life. If one practices and becomes aware of the mind and its functions, he will be able to better control the mind, to tell the mind what to do. He will not allow the mind to make him fall down. “For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy.” (Bg 6.6)
In our recent seminar, we spoke about how to become more aware of what’s going on in the mind, and how to ask effective questions. We are giving practical tools for controlling the mind, like re-directing the mind towards spiritual things, spiritual sound vibration, spiritual activities, and engaging the senses. For example, if you engage your senses in the activities of a spiritual service, then it’s easier to control the mind. Or if you absorb the mind in the spiritual philosophy or in spiritual mantras and prayers, then it’s much easier to control the senses. In this way, we attack the enemy from all sides.
Another tool that is effective for controlling the mind is powerful questions. The power of questions for achieving results in life and for controlling the mind is illustrated by a true story from the Second World War. Asking the right question can actually save your life. It did save Mr. Lech’s life. The Nazis stormed into his home one night and herded him and his family into a death camp in Krakow, Poland. His family was murdered before his eyes.
Weak, grieving, and starving, he worked from sunrise to sundown alongside the other prisoners of the concentration camp. How could anyone survive such horrors? Somehow he continued. One day, he looked at the nightmare around him and concluded that if he stayed there even one more day, he would die. He decided that he must escape. And most important, he believed that, even though no one before him had escaped, somehow there was a way.
His focus changed from how to survive to asking instead, “How can we escape from this horrible place?” He received the same answer over and over from prisoners. “Don’t be a fool! There is no escape. Asking such questions will only torture your mind.” But he wouldn’t accept this answer. He kept asking himself, “How can I escape? There must be a way. How can I get out of here?”
One day, his answer came. Lech smelled rotting flesh just a few feet from where he worked: men, women, and children who had been gassed and whose naked corpses had been piled into the back of a truck. Instead of focusing on the question “How could God allow something so evil to happen?” he asked himself, “How can I use this to escape?”
As the sun set and the work party left for the barracks, he pulled off his clothes and dove naked into the pile of bodies while no one was looking.
Pretending to be dead, he waited with the sickening smell of death all around him, the weight of the corpses pressing upon him. Finally, he heard a truck engine start. After a short ride, the mountain of bodies was dumped into an open grave. He waited until he was certain no one was nearby and ran – naked – the twenty-five miles to freedom.
What made a difference between the fate of Lech and that of many millions who died in concentration camps? There were probably several factors, but one big difference is that he asked a different question. And he asked it over and over, with expectation, certain he would receive an answer.
We ask ourselves questions all day long. Our questions influence our focus, how we think, and how we feel. Asking the right questions can be a major way to turn our life around. Instead of asking, “Why is life so unfair?” and “Why don’t my plans ever work out?” we may ask questions that could give us useful answers. Therefore, how great a difference it will bring to your life questions that are empowering, and not questions that drain your energy and take away the possibility to succeed.
For example, we ask ourselves a classic question “Why they do this or that?” But, who are “they”? The government, demigods that make trouble with the weather or create other natural disturbances, society, my colleagues at the workplace, family members. Who else? Ants, mosquitoes, the wind (which brought me a headache today), bus drivers, bowels. We can blame so many people and things. We sometimes make a condition that when “they” become perfect, I will become too. Until then, I have an excuse that because you are not perfect, I am also not perfect, and I don’t want to make an effort.” However, statistics show that successful people ask themselves a different question. Instead of “Why they?” they ask “How can I?” “How can I contribute to a positive change?” “What’s the best thing I can do in this situation?”
Let’s say you have a conflict. That’s usual. During a conflict, we usually think, “Why is this person like this? Somehow I have to convince this person to change.” But if we ask ourselves a question, “What I can do to help resolve this conflict? What can I do to understand this person? What is my responsibility in this situation towards God, towards people, towards myself?” then it’s a different approach. We are the only person we can change. We cannot change others. We can try to influence them, but we cannot change them. We can influence people if they allow us, if they trust us, have a relationship with us. A quality of questions we ask ourselves determines a quality of our thinking, what goes on in the mind every day, and that, in turn, determines the quality of the results that we get. Therefore, maybe it pays off to change the quality of our questions and the quality of our thinking. If we change the way we think, we can change the quality of our lives.
What about how we feel (another function of the mind)? Do you know that you can choose the way you feel? Do you know that you can get up in the morning and say, “Today, I’m not going to be frustrated”? It is possible. I have one simple technique. It might seem too simple but if you try it you’ll see that it works. It works for me, it works for others, and we teach this technique in various cities around Europe.
When you are upset, raise your arms high and try to remain frustrated with your arms raised. Try hard to remain disturbed! Does it work? Can you be frustrated in that position? It will be very difficult. So get up, raise your arms, and lift up your head. Motion brings emotion. Change of the bodily posture changes the state of mind. Instantly. Just raise your hands and the state of mind changes.
But we like to be depressed. Why? Because then I am in the center. “Oh, poor me! I have so many problems. No one notices me.”
Therefore, frustration is maybe a way to draw attention to ourselves. We might like when someone asks us, “Oh, what’s the matter with you?” And we think, “Great! I’m getting attention.”
But we like to be depressed. Why? Because then I am in the center.
One way you can be happy the whole day is to decide in the morning to focus on others, not on yourself. “Let me do something for my friends, for my family. Let me focus on others. For the past fifty years, I think of myself only. Let me practice at least for one day, and see what happens. See whether at the end of the day I’ll be happy or not.”
There are many ways and techniques, but I strongly recommend powerful questions for changing the quality of our thinking. For example, you may take a verse from the Bhagavad-gita and turn it into a question. Bhagavad-gita’s timeless knowledge is so powerful. It comes from Krsna, God. The verse turned into a question changes the quality of our thinking and of our life. Try it and let me know the result. There are 700 verses and most verses can be turned into a question that can be a useful tool for controlling the mind.
Scriptures like Bhagavad-gita are not only a theological or religious theory. They are meant to be used in everyday life. That’s why we do service of coaching, which helps to apply daily that which is written in the books of wisdom. In controlling the mind, there must be vigilance. We shouldn’t trust the mind. It can allow the enemies of the mind to rule over us at any moment. The best Samurais, Japanese warriors, after their intense training, have to pass the final test, the test of life or death. They put a warrior in a dark room, who is to be attacked after some time by another skilled warrior, who tries to kill him with all his might. Therefore, the warrior who is tested must be awake. He doesn’t know when he’ll be attacked. He must not sleep. He must have sharp reflexes. He must be awake and defend his own life in the dark.
Srila Prabhupada said that as this warrior is vigilant, we need to be vigilant regarding the illusory energy which tries to drag us every moment away from Krsna or from focusing on spiritual matters. Such vigilance is absolutely necessary.
It’s very easy to become complacent and think, “I am now okay. I’ve been chanting for 20 years already. I have eaten about 5 tons of prasadam, food that was offered to God. I hope I’ve been purified.” In a matter of seconds, we can slip into illusion again.
A few days ago one devotee told me how he was shocked that after many years of sincerely practicing Krsna consciousness some weird things started to appear very intensely in his mind. He was bewildered. We discussed it and concluded that the illusory, material energy tested him. He might not be interested in the material, sinful activities anymore, but at the same time, he might have made an offense or did something else that is wrong. So Maya, material energy, was checking where he was at, whether he was still serious and sincere, whether he has become proud because he’d been practicing spiritual life for 20 years, whether he thinks he’s better than others. If one has a leadership position, that’s another reason to think you’re better than others. And he has one.
Whoever becomes proud, he comes into a very dangerous situation to fall under the influence of illusion and to fall down. Therefore cautiousness is essential. It is said that the mind is a king of cheats, therefore vigilant observation of what’s happening must be there. Thinking, feeling, willing, what desires are there? What do I feel?
Gita Seva
